April 15, 2025

Is the Meaning of Your Work, Working for You?

Is the Meaning of Your Work, Working for You?
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Work isn’t just about a paycheck— it’s the framework that shapes our lives. In this episode, we explore the tension between pursuing a job, a career, or a calling and the practical realities of economic necessity. From the fallout of 9/11 to the global upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, we've seen how societal shifts influence our work-life connection. What if we flipped the script? Instead of letting work dictate our lifestyle, could we design our careers around the lifestyle we truly want?

Working on Purpose is broadcast live Tuesdays at 6PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Working on Purpose is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).

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WEBVTT

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The topics and opinions express in the following show are

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solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not

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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We

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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,

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be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing

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W FOURCY Radio.

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What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the

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answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose

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at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their

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lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization

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that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their

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highest potential. Business can be such a force for good

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in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide

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guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we

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all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor

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Elise Cortez.

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Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has

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been brought to with passionate pride since February of twenty fifteen.

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Thanks for Tune eighty and this week. Great to have you.

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I'm your host, doctor Eliscoretes. If we've not met before

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and you don't know me, I'm an organizational psychologist, workforce advisor,

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management consultant, speaker and author, and my team and I

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at gusto Now help equip your organization to best attract, engage,

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and keep today's diverse and discerning workforce. We do so

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in part by teaching you how to activate meeting and

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purpose and inspiration throughout your leadership and culture. And did

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you know that inspiration is good for the bottom line?

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In fact, inspired employees outperform their satisfied peers by a

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factor of two point twenty five to one. You can

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learn more about us and how we can work together

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at gustodashnow dot com or my personal site at Lascortes

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dot com. Before we get into today's program, I am

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thrilled to announce that registration is ongoing for the fabulous

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new conference for women for which I'll serve as the MC.

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It's called Thrive in twenty five and it's a jam

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packed few days in Chicago, twenty fifth through twenty eighth,

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from bolstering your mindset to your financial acumen, to leadership,

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to incorporating nature and art into your life, to raise

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consciousness and much more. Visit thrive in twenty five dot

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com for more information and to register. Use my promo

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free books and programs I'll be gifting registrants. See you

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there now getting back in today's program we have with

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us for the second time around. We have doctor Christopher

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Wong Michaelson, a philosopher with twenty five years of experience

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advising business leaders, pursuing meaning and providing work with purpose.

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He is the Barbara and David A. Coch Coach Endowed

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Cheer in Business Ethics and Academic director of the Melrose

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and the Toro Company Center for Principal Leadership at the

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University of Saint Thomas and on the Business and Society

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Faculty of NYU's Stern School of Business. Also with us

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back again a second time is doctor Jennifer Toci Coattis,

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who is the Camillia Latino Spinel Endowed Termchair and Professor

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of Management and at Bapst College. She teaches researchers and

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coaches others about what it means to craft a meaningful

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career and appreciate the risk and rewards of work as

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a calling. Today, they have written The Meaning and Purpose

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of Work and Interdisciplinary Framework for Considering what Work is for,

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which will be talking about today. Christopher joins us from

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minne Amplis and Jennifer from Boston. Christopher and jen and

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welcome back to Working on Purpose.

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It's great to be back. Thank you, Elise, so welcome.

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Thank you, Elise.

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This is wonderful, so welcome. And look at this a

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beautiful thing you brought forth. It's just beautiful. You know,

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it's not a lot of pages, but there is a

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lot in here which I really appreciate. So you've packed

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in a lot of really interesting, juicy, yummy information. So

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we're going to dive into it. Would I'd venture to

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say that most of the people that are listening to

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this podcast today probably don't know just how much variance

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and nuance there is to the world and meaning and purpose.

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So we're going to dive in. Okay, so let's do this.

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I would love to open with your perspectives. One of

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you or both of you. Why people do you think

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are so fixated today on meaning and purpose? What's the

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draw and do you think it does stiffer by generations?

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I think it does, But what's your perspective?

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I'll jump in, Oh, go ahead, CHRISTI regin. I was

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gonna say, I'll jump in briefly and then let Christopher

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take it. As you can see, we're both eager to answer.

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I do want to give a shout out Elisa as

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you held up that beautiful book, and I do think

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it's more beautiful, perhaps than like the average book. The

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cover art was done by Christopher's wife, Beth, who is

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a people loved that it reminds us of the sea

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and the sky and just this contemplative you know, color

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and vision, and so that's what we hoped to bring forward.

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So to answer your question, I think that meaning and

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purpose are hopefully always on our minds to some extent,

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but never more so than when we're faced with a crisis.

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And so I think, especially now post pandemic, people are

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still grappling with the pandemic feels sort of near but far,

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and we have a lot of remnants and vestiges of it.

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And I think one of those is people still wondering,

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you know, if the work that they do, which pulls

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them away from anything else they might do with their life,

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maybe pulls them away from loved ones or requires sacrifices

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of various kinds, really is how they want to be

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spending their time. And so I think we all get

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a little more contemplative, a little more intentional when faced

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with crisis, and I just think we still feel those

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traces of the you know, sort of formative impact that

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the pandemic had on us. To your question about generations,

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I think no one feels this more acutely than today's

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youngest generation in the workforce, Generation Z, who really, you know,

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came of age, sort of entered the workforce, grappled directly

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with what the pandemic meant. And so research is showing

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Generation Z, compared to prior generations, values things like having

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a stable job, having financial security. It's sort of like

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they saw how tumultuous things could be and how unpredictable,

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and they're seeking a bedrock. And I think part of

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that because the Millennials were described they're one generation older.

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Generation was described as the purpose generation. But I think

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that what we're seeing is the same holds true for

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Generation Z. They value like a third of Generation Z

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says their number one criterion for work is that they

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feel that it makes a difference in the world, that

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it has a clear meaning and a clear purpose. So

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I just think that's part of that post COVID nature

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that it kind of forces us to ask the big

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questions completely.

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It alludes to there are people who study generations for

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a living, and so there are people who know far

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more about the characteristics of Generation Z versus millennials than

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I do. And I think that I'm out of the

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generational forecasting business because it's so complex, these forces that

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influence their choices. But I can say something about some

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members of Generation Z who I happen to be meeting

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with an hour from now in class. And these are

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students who are actually mostly seniors in college who are

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doing internships. And it's April fifteenth, tax Day, and most

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of my students in this class are actually doing internships

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with tax accounting firms. They's sort of arms and legs

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for the piles and piles of tax returns that they

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have to get through. And I have to say that

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at the beginning of the semester. When my students were

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new in their internships, they were expressing great satisfaction from

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learning a new technique or a new statute and just

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getting from the beginning to the end of a tax form.

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But now that that's old hat, they're wanting more. A

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lot of them are saying, hmm, this was great. I

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learned a lot, But I wonder if a lifetime of

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doing tax returns is enough for me. So in that sense,

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I think the questions of meaning and purpose can be timeless.

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I really appreciate you saying that. Christopher. Also in your

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book this came up. I noticed you said something about

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people saying I want more. And what I've discovered as

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well in my work and what I'm out speaking is

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that what they really oftentimes mean by that is they

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do want more. Meaning that more is very interesting sort

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of as tell. It's a very simple tell. So this

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idea of work, right especially you've been talking about the

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idea of its tax returns and oh my gosh, I

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got my done on Sunday. But work can be, you know,

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at its best, wildly fulfilling and a chance to really

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do meaning for work, and it's worst, it can be

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soul sucking. So let's talk a little bit about what

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it looks like when it's at its best.

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I have an example of when it's at it's worst,

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but hopefully we can transition to when it's at its best.

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For tonight's class, my students read the opening of Adam

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Smith The Wealth of Nations, which famously depicts a pin

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making factory in which it takes eighteen manual steps to

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create a fully fashioned straight pin. So just imagine eighteen

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steps to make this simple little item, and how dull

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each one of those steps must be. So one thing

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that we're going to be talking about is, well, why

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why do we break those tasks into simpler and simpler

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tasks such that they're eighteen of them? And one of

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the reasons is that it's incredibly productive to do so.

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It's far more efficient to work in organizations than to

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work on our own, and so in that sense, what

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makes work at its best meaningful is the ability to

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do much more than we can individually to as the

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saying goes, to be part of something much bigger than ourselves.

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And yet that example shows the risk that work can

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also kind of destin us for doing something much smaller

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than ourselves. So it's really up to the people who

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have the power to assign and divide and distribute work

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to think about how it is assigned and designed and

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distributed to make it more fulfilling.

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I like what you said in the book about how

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work can give meaning and purpose and it can take

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it away. I think that's a really powerful way to

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think about it. Did you want to add anything to that, Jim.

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Well, it's funny. Christopher keeps referencing his class, and so

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I just came from class. He's going to class, and

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I just came from class. One of the things we

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talked about in this class in particular was the concept

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of flow. So this state where you are so fully

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engaged in your mind and body that, for example, you

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lose track of time. And just as Christopher is talking

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about these sort of double edged sword, the students have

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a lot of trouble disentangling trueflow from I had a

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boring job and I zoned out to get through it.

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They're like, is that flow? Because I basically go somewhere

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else in my mind to get through the day. And

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we had to explain how that's like the opposite, you know,

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the opposite of flow. I think the only thing other

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thing I want to So I think flow, a flow

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state could be a work at its best kind of state,

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and then the opposite of that sort of I have

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to numb myself to get through the workday. Is is

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the you know, is work at its worst. But I

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think the other piece that matters a lot is about

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recognition and appreciation. And so I think often we have

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important work in society that we know is important, but

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that too often gets looked down upon or goes unnoticed.

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And so I think that's the other our other side

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of it is that few of us are lucky enough

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to work in both you know, occupations that we feel

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sufficient autonomy, we love it, we're engaged. Maybe we do

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occasionally or often reach a state of flow and that

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are also recognized and appreciated within society.

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Well, that is certainly what I'm out to do, as

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you both know, is out to create more workplaces where

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you can really feel that sense of being fulfilled and

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that this is where I want to be, This is

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where I belong, and I don't want to leave what

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I call destination workplaces. So I'm certainly out to help

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champion more of those experiences because I want people to

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be able to define work as we want to talk

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about next, in a way that really matters to them.

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So let's talk a little bit about definitions of work.

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And I like how you talk about how when people

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do start talking about definitions of work for themselves, that

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it really reveals what they value. So you could situate

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for us what work really means.

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Yeah, we define work as that which is effortful, purposeful,

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and recognized by society. And here I don't mean recognized

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by society like what I was just talking about in

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terms of really valuing and recognizing and appreciating the work

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sort of in its own rights, So not I don't know,

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you know, walking by the street sweeper or the office

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cleaner without you know, thanking and acknowledging their work, which

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is more what I was alluding to in the first answer.

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But I mean, at a very basic level, like we

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would say we consider it work in society, we consider

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it to be work. Now often that overlaps with paid employment.

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So a question might be what gets left out of

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this definition, And what gets left out is are things

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that are purposeful and effortful, but which we generally do

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not consider to be work in the in the you know,

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colloquial sense that we use it in every day language.

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So things like if we clean our own homes or

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raise our own children, those are a heck of a

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lot of work, extremely purposeful, and yet when we pay

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someone else to do it, it's work. When we do

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it for ourselves, it's not. Of course, it excludes you know,

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historically marginalized work like that which was done by women

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or minorities like housework and childcare. But that's we're sort

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of meeting a contemporary definition, you know, sort of where

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it's at. The generally dovetails with paid employment.

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One of the things I thought was interesting you talked

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about the notion of how you know, how someone describes

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their work is going to speak to what they value.

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That I went straight to as a logo therapist. Logos

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is Greek for meaning, So that's one of my degrees

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and one of one of my practicums that I use

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in my consulting. What we know through logo therapy, the

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lens of logo therapy and logo philosophy is that meaning

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is registered along our value. So what you find meaningful

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gen will be for what I find meaningful and was

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for Christopher because we have different values. And I certainly

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saw that in my own research, and I see it

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when I'm out speaking, and even when I told you

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I spoke with Professor Thaudius Metz, it's very very clear

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to me that one of his chief values is cognitive contribution.

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So what he finds meaningful and valuable is very much

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his research and all of his articles and books that

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he's written because he values cognitive contribution. So just kind

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of interesting to me how that really called out it,

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and I could see how I could dance and play

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with your research as well through my lens.

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A true philosopher. Of course, the philosopher appreciates cognitive contribution

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right absolutely. I'm also thinking, as I listened to the

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two of you, that the way in which we express

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the word work kind of betrays our values. So I

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was giving a talk recently and somebody came up to

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me before I was beginning to speak, and he said,

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you know, work is a four letter word, which is

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I think a very old joke, but it was new

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to me, and I thought, well, he's just demonstrated his

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work values. Whereas I grew up in a home with

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a mother whose very identity was her work, and she

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kind of inherited that from her father, and so work

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was very much not a four letter word in the

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way that I came to value it same.

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It is true for me, very very very similar kind

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of background in that way. Let us rub our first

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break and let our listeners of yours too, and what

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we've been talking about so far. I'm your host, doctor

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Leis Cortez. We've been on the air with doctor Christopher Wong,

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Michael Send, a philosopher with twenty five years of experience

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advising business leaders, pursuing meaning and providing work for a purpose,

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and doctor Jennifer Tosti Karus, who teaches researchers and coaches

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others about what it means to craft a meaningful career

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and appreciate the risks and rewards of work as a calling.

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We've been talking about the good and the bad, the

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pros and cons of work and what it can mean

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for us. After the break, we're going to start with

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how we distinguish meaning from purpose. We'll be right back.

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Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning

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and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies

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visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired

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leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and

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commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite

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a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her

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at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get

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your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose

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with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or

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to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to

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Alise A Lisee at elisecortes dot com. Now back to

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working on Purpose.

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Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working

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on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I too,

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am dedicated to help create a world where organizations thrive

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because of their people thrive, and they're led by inspirational

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leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and

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we do business that betters the world. I keep researching

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and writing my own books. So one of my latest

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that came out is called The Great Revitalization. How activating

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meaning and purpose can radically in liven your business. And

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I wrote it to help leaders understand the needs and

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wants of today's evolved workforce and then provide twenty two

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best practices to help you fold that into your culture,

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to provide that for them. You can find my books

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on Amazon or my personal site at Leiscortes dot com

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if you are just joining us. My guests are doctor

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Christopher Wong Michaelson and doctor Jennifer Toasti Karis, the authors

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of The Meaning and Purpose at Work and Interdiscplinary Framework

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for Considering what work is for which what we've been

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talking about here so far. So I think what I've

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noticed a lot of times when I'm out speaking is

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people tend to conflate the words meaning and purpose. From

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my benache point, they are wildly and radically different. How

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would you distinguish the two?

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You know, I've had a lifetime of research to think

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about this, plus the break we just had, and I

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still don't know exactly how to answer this question. So

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I'm actually really curious about the clarity of the distinction

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that you have, the least because I'm not incredibly clear

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about it. I will say that we say in the

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book that purpose is inherently teleological, which means that it

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is goal oriented. There's a destination in mind, whereas meaning

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can be sort of experienced in the moment without necessarily

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having a purpose, And I think there's some truth to

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that in the way that we sometimes use the words

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meaning and purpose. But as you alluded to, some people

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conflate the definitions and some people have the definitions completely reversed.

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I'll just say one more thing, which is that Emanuel

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the Great Philosopher refers to the experience of appreciating an

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esthetic object as he said this in German, but it's

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often translated into English as purposiveness without purpose, And I

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just I love that phrase, even though I think there's

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a lot of disagreement about what it actually means. But

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to me, that suggests that you can sort of discover

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in that moment of esthetic appreciation a reason for being

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Like an art object can be an end in itself,

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and yet it doesn't have purpose because you don't have

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to do anything with it. It doesn't have to be

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useful in any way. So I think that's probably closer

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to what I just described as meaning, because purpose does

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have an end in mind. But those are just some

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of the things that I think about as a philosopher

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in trying to distinguish these concepts.

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Thing you want to add before weigh with my perspective, I.

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Guess just the way I feel like I'm here to say,

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the way we tend to use these words in the

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you know, typical both consulting and research, is when we

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talk about we rarely talk about meaning at the organizational level,

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but we do talk about purpose at the organizational level,

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which I think is interesting and that I do wonder

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about the you know, end, the ending in sight that

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Christopher just mentioned and whether that's you know, is that

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intentional or should we read too much into it that

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it's purpose that got adopted at the organizational level and

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not meaning. But I think that is potentially just another distinction,

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whether it's a you know, a merely a way we

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use the language, or if there's some deeper meaning to it.

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We do tend to talk about organizations with a purpose

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in a way that we don't talk about organizations with meaning.

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I think that's all.

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This is incredibly astute. What I would add to layer

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in to this whole conversation is from my vantage point,

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and what I talk about is really meaning is our

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energy supply, and we can find meaning in the moment

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meaning and this this is a meaningful conversation. So of course,

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unlike professor Thats that we met so that we talked

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about before, who talks about meaning in work and meaning

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in life. I am focused in meaning, meaning and meaning

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of work and meaning of meaning in work. So so

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for me, meaning is always that, that's that energizing source

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for us. It's the thing that allows us to be

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to be moved by our work in some way. And

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then purpose, of course, really is that why you know,

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why are we doing? We know? Why are we here?

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Why are we do we exist as an organization? Why

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do we exist as an individual human? And so that

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really speaks to it's a it's a directional sort of

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orientation that can guide one's choice, one's choices and values

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and decisions. And this is where I think it gets

408
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interesting is it's from my view, it's also connected to

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our potential. And that is why I believe people are

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so convicted by it because they know on some level

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this has something to do with my potential. And I

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believe it does. When you finally, when you really fall

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into it on a deep level, I believe you can

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reach and realize more of your potential.

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I actually think that there was a lot in what

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you said that was very clear. That was aligned with

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what I said, which was very unclear, and I think

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that's probably a good thing. I think one thing that

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scholars might talk about is do we need common definitions

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of these words? Do we need to understand a common distinction?

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I certainly think it makes it easier for us to

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talk about these things, but in some way there is meaning,

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so to speak, in just talking about the distinctions.

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Completely agree. I can talk about this all day long.

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You guys need to go to class afterwards, or you're good,

426
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We're just going to keep going. Okay, Well along those lines,

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I have to say, and I'm jealous. I think it

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was hu jenn that that studied under Professor Amy. I

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00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:03.359
want to seems new Ski is that Resneski are very close.

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Resneski I knew. I've known of her work for a

431
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long time. I know I've cited it many many times,

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and so I want to talk about what she came

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up with. She and others I believe came up with.

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She has a few co authors looking at work as jobs, careers,

435
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and calling. And this is really important too, not just

436
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:23.960
for your own individual self, but you in relation to

437
00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:27.680
your partner. That was really really interesting. I can tell

438
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you probably part of the reasons that I'm divorced because

439
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I have a calling orientation and my ex husband had

440
00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.759
has a career orientation. I can almost guarantee you that's

441
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:40.400
part of it. So let's get into it. Yeah, career

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00:24:40.519 --> 00:24:42.880
calling awesome, all right.

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So I was unbelievably lucky understatement to study at the

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Stern School of Business when Amy Resneski was there as

445
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a professor. She ended up being my dissertation chair. From there,

446
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she moved to Yale School of Management and she's now

447
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at Wharton. So you know, her long, illustrious academic career continues,

448
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and I like merely try to just you know, follow

449
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:07.079
ride on her coatails basically. But so she popularized this

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idea of job career and calling for specifically sort of

451
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vocational psychology, organizational psychology, and organizational behavior within the management discipline.

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But this was an idea of job career calling that

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originated actually in sociology. So Robert Bella and colleagues wrote

454
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this book, Habits of the Heart, which was all about

455
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actually engagement in civic life and as we discuss in

456
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the book, our relationship to our work, where you know,

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we spend kind of the majority of our waking hours

458
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most of us do. Was given five pages in the

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book was dedicated to work, and in those five pages

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they came up with job, career, and calling. And it

461
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was all based on interviews with people to understand their

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engagement with civic society or lack thereof. And again work

463
00:25:53.559 --> 00:25:56.119
was not explored in depth, but there was this like

464
00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:59.359
nugget of wisdom in there that then Amy had the

465
00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:04.440
corresponding wisdom to really run with and translate and then

466
00:26:04.519 --> 00:26:11.039
subsequently relate to all these various organizational and individual outcomes,

467
00:26:11.079 --> 00:26:13.240
which has been really her you know, the legacy of

468
00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:16.160
her own research. And so just for readers or sorry

469
00:26:16.200 --> 00:26:19.400
to readers, readers and listeners who may be unfamiliar with

470
00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:22.039
these terms, a job is when the work is a

471
00:26:22.079 --> 00:26:24.680
means to an end, typically a financial end, and the

472
00:26:24.680 --> 00:26:28.920
most common job orientation is mostly about making money from

473
00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:32.480
the work. A career orientation is more about again a

474
00:26:32.519 --> 00:26:35.480
means to an end, but this time it's advancement within

475
00:26:35.559 --> 00:26:40.799
one's career. Traditionally that looked like ascension within an organizational hierarchy.

476
00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:43.200
But today, and I just told this to my students,

477
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:46.160
actually today it might look like, you know, respect within

478
00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:50.920
your peer group. However, that's defined centrality within an occupational community.

479
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:52.319
I mean, I don't want to say out loud to

480
00:26:52.359 --> 00:26:55.680
them number of subscribers or you know, anything like that,

481
00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:58.480
but you just figure whatever is your metric of success

482
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:03.039
and the achievement or that's a career orientation. And then finally,

483
00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:06.079
a calling is where the work is a meaningful end

484
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:11.799
unto itself and often but not always affiliated with the

485
00:27:11.839 --> 00:27:14.359
idea that your work makes the world a better place

486
00:27:14.440 --> 00:27:18.480
or does a societal good. And so, you know, again

487
00:27:18.519 --> 00:27:21.279
a calling, we glorify it, we tend to talk about,

488
00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:24.440
we tend to advise people, you know, find your calling,

489
00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:27.799
you know, find your purpose, find your calling. And so

490
00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:31.240
we know an awful lot about the calling orientation now

491
00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:33.640
and a lot of research, including my own, has sort

492
00:27:33.640 --> 00:27:36.200
of run with that orientation. I did want to briefly

493
00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:40.039
touch on Amy's work with Winnie Jong. That's all about

494
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:44.480
this congruence of work orientations in couples. I agree. I

495
00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:48.640
think it's completely fascinating and the overall finding that when

496
00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:53.200
our work orientations are incongruent with you know, a spouse

497
00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:57.440
or life partner, that this is generally bad. So, for example,

498
00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:01.000
if one partner were to become unemployed, it takes them

499
00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:04.480
longer to find a job if the if their partner

500
00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:09.480
is not congruent with their work orientation. And this really

501
00:28:09.519 --> 00:28:11.960
actually then links back to research Christopher and I have

502
00:28:12.039 --> 00:28:16.519
done about how our work orientations are perceived by those

503
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:22.640
around us, those who are close relations, whether you know spouses, siblings, parents, children,

504
00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:25.559
co workers, et cetera. But that we sort of to

505
00:28:25.680 --> 00:28:29.519
know someone and to know about their life largely is

506
00:28:29.559 --> 00:28:32.519
to also know something about their work. And this idea

507
00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:35.079
of Christopher and I look more at sort of how

508
00:28:35.119 --> 00:28:38.480
do others view the work? You know, how would my

509
00:28:38.599 --> 00:28:40.960
spouse view my work? Which is a little different than

510
00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:44.960
saying are our own work orientations congruent or incongruent? But

511
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:47.759
I think there's just something so fascinating about And I

512
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:51.440
think this is where research on job career calling is going.

513
00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:56.039
We're looking more at these sort of relational complexities and

514
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:59.880
dynamics and sort of the interplay of it. Used to

515
00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:03.079
be just what is my own orientation, not even thinking

516
00:29:03.119 --> 00:29:06.759
about other people. And I even have a paper it's

517
00:29:06.799 --> 00:29:09.240
not yet published, but we're working on that's all about

518
00:29:09.240 --> 00:29:12.920
work orientations and teams. I mean, you can think of superior,

519
00:29:13.160 --> 00:29:17.039
subordinate congruence. I mean, there's just lots of places that

520
00:29:17.079 --> 00:29:19.039
this can go, which I think is really exciting.

521
00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:22.359
I completely agree. Did you want to chime into something

522
00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:23.400
to Christopher one.

523
00:29:24.440 --> 00:29:28.359
I'm just thinking back to the research that brought Jen

524
00:29:28.440 --> 00:29:30.920
and I together as colleagues. Actually, and I'm going to

525
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:33.440
give another shout out to Amy Razniwski because she's the

526
00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:36.000
reason that we met at a conference that Amy organizes.

527
00:29:36.519 --> 00:29:40.960
But our initial research together was on nine to eleven

528
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:46.400
victims and love It. Of course, the writing about these

529
00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:50.160
victims lives and working lives was based on interviews with

530
00:29:50.519 --> 00:29:54.880
their loved ones, who often didn't really understand the work

531
00:29:54.920 --> 00:29:58.079
from the inside. They weren't coworkers, they were family members.

532
00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:01.359
So if you think about how much actually see the

533
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:05.519
work that your significant other does, maybe a little bit

534
00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:09.440
more today when we work remotely, but rarely do we

535
00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:13.079
get to see the office from the inside. And so

536
00:30:13.599 --> 00:30:18.599
we did find in our research probably a disproportionate level

537
00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:23.160
of attributions of work as a calling in a sense,

538
00:30:23.240 --> 00:30:28.400
because we hypothesize that the close relations of the victims

539
00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:32.720
of the attack in a sense romanticized the work of

540
00:30:32.759 --> 00:30:36.400
their loved ones. They wanted to remember them as having

541
00:30:36.559 --> 00:30:40.200
worked at something that they loved doing with people that

542
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:41.240
they loved doing it with.

543
00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:45.599
And I really I appreciate that. I can completely see

544
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:48.119
how that would be. I love the work that you've done,

545
00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:51.160
by the way, I'm such a fan of that. When

546
00:30:51.160 --> 00:30:53.680
it comes to looking at these different ways that people

547
00:30:53.759 --> 00:30:55.599
relate to their work, I think I want to mention

548
00:30:55.640 --> 00:30:58.519
too that my meaning. My research for my dissertation and

549
00:30:58.519 --> 00:31:01.640
then my post arc research was on meaning and work

550
00:31:01.640 --> 00:31:04.440
and identity. I want to understand how people experienced meaning

551
00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:06.720
in their work and how it related to their sense

552
00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:09.799
of self. And so I found five modes when I

553
00:31:09.799 --> 00:31:12.480
did my dissertation. But then when I layered in the

554
00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:17.720
depth the kind of meaning along Maslow's hierarchy, and I

555
00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:20.839
looked at so that was the you know, the meaning levels,

556
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:23.920
then also the affect whether it's positive or negative. What

557
00:31:24.039 --> 00:31:26.240
I found were fifteen modes of engagement and they were

558
00:31:26.279 --> 00:31:30.599
anywhere from the most. Most most engaged was transcendent connection.

559
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:33.640
Connection people felt like they were doing work where they

560
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:35.920
were helping to elevate or connect people to a higher

561
00:31:35.960 --> 00:31:40.240
source or God or whatever. And then next living your purpose,

562
00:31:40.519 --> 00:31:43.039
which is the one that I experienced today, and at

563
00:31:43.079 --> 00:31:45.880
the very very end, the most negative is existential crisis.

564
00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:49.799
So I thought it was interesting that that Amy's work

565
00:31:49.839 --> 00:31:52.079
does sort of align with some of that. I could

566
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:53.799
probably plunk several of my modes in there, but when

567
00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:56.640
you add the negative balance in there, it becomes something else.

568
00:31:56.680 --> 00:32:00.359
It's really kind of interesting. So anyway, amazing stuff. We

569
00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:02.039
can talk more about this some other time, but that's

570
00:32:02.200 --> 00:32:04.240
my research. I do want to cut to a break,

571
00:32:04.279 --> 00:32:06.240
but unless if you want to say anything before we

572
00:32:06.279 --> 00:32:08.640
go on our break, just.

573
00:32:08.640 --> 00:32:11.799
That I found. I mean, what I have read about

574
00:32:11.839 --> 00:32:15.680
your research I think is fascinating and I do really

575
00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:20.960
like that hierarchy. So Christopher and my nine to eleven

576
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:23.839
research sort of challenge. We often talk about job career

577
00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:27.519
calling and that an order of hierarchy or an order

578
00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:31.599
of importance, and the nine to eleven research sort of

579
00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:34.839
challenges that and says, even a you know, a job

580
00:32:35.559 --> 00:32:39.240
could be valuable if it provides for one's family or

581
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:42.559
a means to a valuable end, but I think your

582
00:32:42.759 --> 00:32:47.279
typology is much more. That hierarchy really is built in

583
00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:50.400
in a much more intuitive way. So it's just something

584
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:53.200
I appreciate about it. Thanks Jen, I appreciate that I

585
00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:55.559
loved it. Obviously, it's a it's truly, it's truly a

586
00:32:55.599 --> 00:32:58.400
passion of mine. Okay, let's grab our last break. I'm

587
00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:00.920
your host, doctor Early Cortes. We've been on the air

588
00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:04.000
with doctor Christopher Wong Michael Sen, a philosopher with twenty

589
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:06.880
five years of experience advising business leaders pursuing meaning and

590
00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:10.839
providing work for a purpose, and doctor Jennifer Tostikarus, who

591
00:33:10.880 --> 00:33:14.079
teaches researchers and coaches others about what it means to

592
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:17.279
craft a meaningful career and appreciate the risks and rewards

593
00:33:17.279 --> 00:33:20.079
of work as a calling. We've been talking about the

594
00:33:20.119 --> 00:33:22.680
differences between meaning and purpose and really getting into the

595
00:33:22.839 --> 00:33:24.160
nitty gritty of purpose.

596
00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:26.839
Excuse me of meaning. After the break, we want to

597
00:33:26.839 --> 00:33:30.000
talk about the pros and the cons of pursuing a calling.

598
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:30.880
We'll be right back.

599
00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:50.079
Doctor Elise Court has as a management consultant specializing in

600
00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:53.839
meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps

601
00:33:53.880 --> 00:33:57.279
companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop

602
00:33:57.359 --> 00:34:01.400
purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused culture that elevate fulfillment

603
00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:05.079
performance and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or

604
00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:07.799
to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please

605
00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:11.280
visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how

606
00:34:11.320 --> 00:34:19.800
to get your employees working on purpose. This is Working

607
00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:23.199
on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program

608
00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:26.039
today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an

609
00:34:26.039 --> 00:34:31.599
email to Elise A Lisee at elisecortes dot com. Now

610
00:34:31.840 --> 00:34:39.000
back to working on Purpose. Thanks for stating with us,

611
00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:41.800
and welcome back. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. I

612
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:43.679
mentioned in the last break that my one of my

613
00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:46.199
books came out recently. It's called a Great Revitalization. What

614
00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:48.239
I did for you is I created a very simple

615
00:34:48.280 --> 00:34:51.320
three page assessment. It's free that you can pull off

616
00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:54.000
my Gusto dash Now site and will help you understand

617
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:56.360
the extent to which today your culture is meeting the

618
00:34:56.400 --> 00:34:59.679
discerning needs of today's workforce. If you are just joining us,

619
00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:02.639
my guest are doctor Christopher wrong Michaelson and doctor Jennifer

620
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:05.639
Toasty Krus, the authors of the Meaning and Purpose of

621
00:35:05.719 --> 00:35:09.239
Work and Interdisciplinary Framework for Considering what Work is for.

622
00:35:10.280 --> 00:35:13.000
So I think people will be really interested to hear.

623
00:35:13.159 --> 00:35:14.679
This is some of the notions of both. I think

624
00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:17.400
most people will probably think that there's only pros to

625
00:35:17.639 --> 00:35:20.440
pursuing a calling, and I think it's valuable that you

626
00:35:20.559 --> 00:35:23.320
have distinguished that there are some very very strong cons

627
00:35:23.599 --> 00:35:24.559
which do you want to talk about?

628
00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:27.519
First? Yeah, well, let me start with the reason that

629
00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:31.000
everybody thinks that callings are so positive, and boy do they.

630
00:35:31.119 --> 00:35:33.440
And that's in part because we have this very strong

631
00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:36.960
cultural message, find your calling, love your life, do what

632
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:40.239
you love. The money will follow. Steve Jobs telling people,

633
00:35:40.360 --> 00:35:42.400
you know, the only way to do good work is

634
00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:45.159
to do what you love back in a Turn of

635
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:49.719
the Millennium commencement speech speech at Stanford, and so people

636
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:51.719
just sort of and it makes an intuitive sense.

637
00:35:52.639 --> 00:35:52.880
You know.

638
00:35:52.920 --> 00:35:55.039
There's all these studies coming out now that I think

639
00:35:55.039 --> 00:35:59.840
are fascinating about people in positions of power within organizations,

640
00:35:59.840 --> 00:36:02.280
and they're sort of lay theories, if you will, about

641
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:06.320
the calling oriented employees being the good employees and wanting

642
00:36:06.360 --> 00:36:10.199
to evaluate them better, promote them, faster, pay them more.

643
00:36:10.280 --> 00:36:13.480
So again, this is a cultural message that's out there

644
00:36:13.559 --> 00:36:17.159
and that really does have I think some legs within organizations.

645
00:36:18.519 --> 00:36:20.559
And of course let me also say by way of

646
00:36:21.039 --> 00:36:26.719
framing that certainly an alternative to meaningful work. Meaning less

647
00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:30.199
work or drudgery, or work that feels like there's no point,

648
00:36:30.559 --> 00:36:33.400
no recognition. It makes the world a worse place, you know,

649
00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:35.280
all these things that are sort of if we were

650
00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:37.960
to say the theoretical opposite of work as a calling,

651
00:36:38.199 --> 00:36:40.039
you know, we don't want that either. So I'm not

652
00:36:40.079 --> 00:36:42.519
here to say no, calling's bad and we should all

653
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:46.800
embrace like meaning less work. The way I want more

654
00:36:46.880 --> 00:36:50.159
to phrase it is that a calling can be an

655
00:36:50.199 --> 00:36:55.639
extreme orientation toward work. That extreme can come with extreme pros.

656
00:36:56.280 --> 00:36:59.199
But we are having a one sided conversation if we

657
00:36:59.239 --> 00:37:02.159
don't talk about the extreme cons And it's kind of

658
00:37:02.199 --> 00:37:04.880
similar to how people talk about things like you know,

659
00:37:04.920 --> 00:37:11.599
I mean basically any any cognition, any personality, trait, any attitude.

660
00:37:11.679 --> 00:37:13.679
You can sort of have this one side of it

661
00:37:13.800 --> 00:37:15.239
and then another side of it.

662
00:37:15.360 --> 00:37:15.519
Right.

663
00:37:15.559 --> 00:37:17.800
So I'm, you know, a hard worker, but then do

664
00:37:17.840 --> 00:37:19.960
I sometimes work too hard and I don't know when

665
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:21.840
to you know, put the work away. And it's like

666
00:37:21.960 --> 00:37:25.800
that with work as a calling. So you know, I

667
00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:29.079
and others have done studies that have really linked a

668
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:32.880
calling at work to feeling overall that life is both

669
00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:35.880
sort of better. You're you're living a better life and

670
00:37:35.960 --> 00:37:38.559
a more purposeful life. And I mean, in some ways,

671
00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:41.599
maybe we could say, if that's the end goal, that's

672
00:37:41.639 --> 00:37:43.960
all we need to know. But there are other I

673
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.079
think more like hidden and insidious ways potentially that work

674
00:37:48.119 --> 00:37:51.920
as a calling can to some extent maybe erode an

675
00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:54.960
otherwise good quality of life. So one of those would

676
00:37:54.960 --> 00:37:57.920
be through workplace relationships. So we talked earlier about you know,

677
00:37:58.000 --> 00:37:59.960
congruins with a spouse and all that kind of things.

678
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:03.960
But just as as a calling can make us have

679
00:38:04.039 --> 00:38:06.519
very high standards for our work, and maybe we put

680
00:38:06.519 --> 00:38:09.760
in more effort and perform better, which the research backs up,

681
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:12.840
we can sometimes be selective and when and how we

682
00:38:12.920 --> 00:38:17.800
do that, and judgmental of others and even of our organizations.

683
00:38:18.039 --> 00:38:21.599
So the calling, because it's so meaningful, because it's so

684
00:38:21.719 --> 00:38:24.639
deeply held, because it's so important to me and central

685
00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:27.119
in my life, and I might even see it people

686
00:38:27.159 --> 00:38:30.480
have described it as a moral duty. What it means

687
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:33.119
to do less than one hundred percent, or to see

688
00:38:33.119 --> 00:38:36.000
anyone else in the organization doing less than let's say,

689
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:39.880
one hundred and fifty percent. I don't like that if

690
00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:41.800
I have a very strong calling, I might judge that

691
00:38:41.880 --> 00:38:47.519
I might have unhealthy workplace relationships, strained relationships with you know,

692
00:38:47.599 --> 00:38:50.400
people at the same level and different levels as me,

693
00:38:51.079 --> 00:38:53.760
and that might come out in ways that are like

694
00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:57.559
not that adaptive for the organization. The other then, is

695
00:38:57.840 --> 00:38:59.519
that personal cost to myself?

696
00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:00.320
Do I know?

697
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:02.840
How I mean? The positive side is to say, oh,

698
00:39:02.840 --> 00:39:06.320
the calling oriented employees, they will always go above and beyond,

699
00:39:06.360 --> 00:39:09.760
which the research backs up they will, but they'll do

700
00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:13.199
so even at a cost to themselves. So it could

701
00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:15.519
be a literal cost, like I'm more likely to be

702
00:39:15.559 --> 00:39:19.159
the one to show up and do the extra work

703
00:39:19.239 --> 00:39:22.960
for no additional pay, nights, weekends, whenever you need me.

704
00:39:23.920 --> 00:39:26.719
At what point does that either strain relations at home

705
00:39:27.079 --> 00:39:30.599
or create a you know, sort of unsustainable even maybe

706
00:39:30.639 --> 00:39:34.960
exploitative situation at an extreme and at what point am

707
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:38.079
I not looking out for my own health and well being?

708
00:39:38.159 --> 00:39:41.719
So re search backs up that employees with stronger callings

709
00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:45.239
have trouble detaching from work at the end of the

710
00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:48.679
work day. They are thinking about work, sometimes ruminating about

711
00:39:48.760 --> 00:39:53.440
work even at night, waking up with less energy. Physical

712
00:39:53.440 --> 00:39:55.760
and mental health can decline. So again, this seems a

713
00:39:55.760 --> 00:39:58.039
little bit at odds. You know, on one hand, we're

714
00:39:58.079 --> 00:40:02.480
saying calling can be so so beneficial for all these

715
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:05.519
same factors, and it's really sort of that tipping point

716
00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:08.840
where can you draw the healthy boundary and at what

717
00:40:08.920 --> 00:40:13.239
point does deep engagement go into potential for burnout? And

718
00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:15.360
I just think that's a that's a you know, that's

719
00:40:15.480 --> 00:40:18.559
part of our cultural conversation now too, is a conversation

720
00:40:18.639 --> 00:40:21.880
about drawing boundaries and burnout. And again, you know, Covid

721
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:24.599
led us all to think, Okay, I'm working from home

722
00:40:24.639 --> 00:40:27.320
now but working more than ever. So I just, you know,

723
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:30.400
I want to sort of caution people as much as

724
00:40:30.440 --> 00:40:33.480
we as much as we want our work, you know,

725
00:40:33.599 --> 00:40:37.199
to not be meaningless and to have meaning, there can

726
00:40:37.239 --> 00:40:40.039
be some unexpected things that come with us just to

727
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:41.679
be unguard for m hm.

728
00:40:43.360 --> 00:40:45.679
So one thing I love about this conversation is that

729
00:40:46.480 --> 00:40:49.599
I'm learning and discovering as we have it. Jen and

730
00:40:49.599 --> 00:40:52.119
I have talked about these phenomena a million times, and

731
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:55.239
of course we've written about them together, but I've never

732
00:40:55.280 --> 00:41:00.440
heard Jen express calling in such an Aristotelian way to

733
00:41:00.599 --> 00:41:04.599
use a big word. So Aristotle famously had this table

734
00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:08.000
of virtues and vices, and the virtues were always in

735
00:41:08.039 --> 00:41:12.079
the mean between the extremes. So, for example, courage is

736
00:41:12.119 --> 00:41:16.159
a virtue, but too much courage is rashness, and not

737
00:41:16.360 --> 00:41:21.079
enough courage is cowardliness. And I was just thinking, if

738
00:41:21.639 --> 00:41:25.719
work is a calling is a virtue, what's the extreme

739
00:41:26.239 --> 00:41:29.920
where there's too much of it? And that is Victor

740
00:41:29.960 --> 00:41:33.280
Frankenstein Mary Shelley's character of you know, this guy who

741
00:41:34.440 --> 00:41:38.280
creates life from lifeless parts in order to make this

742
00:41:38.440 --> 00:41:41.599
scientific breakthrough, and in the course of doing so, ruins

743
00:41:41.639 --> 00:41:46.519
his relationships, ruins his community, ruins the life of the

744
00:41:46.559 --> 00:41:50.039
being that he's created. And then, if I'm thinking about

745
00:41:50.159 --> 00:41:53.440
what is a deficiency of work as a calling, another

746
00:41:53.480 --> 00:41:57.280
literary character I think of is Melville's Bartleby, who just

747
00:41:57.360 --> 00:42:00.760
stops doing his work altogether and says I prefer not

748
00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:04.800
to when asked to do that work, and dies sad

749
00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:09.679
and alone. So I think this idea of calling as

750
00:42:09.719 --> 00:42:12.880
a healthy balance is probably where we ought to be

751
00:42:13.079 --> 00:42:16.119
instead of encouraging such an excess of it.

752
00:42:17.239 --> 00:42:20.760
And that's that's our next book, folks. Okay, well, well

753
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:22.559
we got to come back. Remember that this is you

754
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:25.679
got to break the record of four. So so what's

755
00:42:25.679 --> 00:42:27.840
interesting just layer and we layering in one more bit.

756
00:42:27.960 --> 00:42:30.280
For me when it comes to the world of calling,

757
00:42:30.480 --> 00:42:34.559
is for my own experience, is that there's so much

758
00:42:34.599 --> 00:42:37.000
fulfillment in it, in the idea and that which is

759
00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:38.800
so it's like an elix, sir, it's and it's a

760
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:42.880
drug and and of course you know, getting the feedback

761
00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:44.679
this is what I needed, this is what I needed

762
00:42:44.760 --> 00:42:47.760
kind of thing, and it's it's just it does feel

763
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:50.239
like it's such a social good, it's such a it's

764
00:42:50.079 --> 00:42:54.320
a it's a good beyond myself. So that is probably

765
00:42:54.400 --> 00:42:57.199
part of you know, what keeps me going so strongly

766
00:42:57.320 --> 00:42:59.559
is I keep getting you know, more and more of

767
00:42:59.599 --> 00:43:01.960
that wonder full drug of fulfillment and it just it

768
00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:05.719
just keeps the train going. So we haven't really talked

769
00:43:05.719 --> 00:43:07.920
about that part of it, but that's a big part

770
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:09.639
of it as well. I would say I.

771
00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:13.760
Think calling it a drug is really insightful because there

772
00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:16.559
is a sense in which a calling can be addictive.

773
00:43:16.840 --> 00:43:18.559
Oh very much so, no question.

774
00:43:19.199 --> 00:43:19.400
Yeah.

775
00:43:19.400 --> 00:43:24.599
I think the addictive married with the morality, the perceived

776
00:43:24.760 --> 00:43:30.039
morality of a calling, gets us into lots of fascinating

777
00:43:30.159 --> 00:43:33.519
territory for sort of callings going you know, too much,

778
00:43:33.559 --> 00:43:37.320
too little judgments. It's I think it's fascinating.

779
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:40.840
Yeah, And this kind of get us into where I

780
00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:43.000
want to go next is there's a part of it,

781
00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:45.480
for at least for me where I really feel like

782
00:43:45.559 --> 00:43:47.320
when people tell me how much it helps them. So

783
00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:49.760
that feeling like I'm being of service, that's such a

784
00:43:49.800 --> 00:43:51.880
strong And what I know, of course from the world

785
00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:54.360
of loco therapy is that we humans are at our

786
00:43:54.440 --> 00:43:57.519
best when we are helping. Where we are serving other people,

787
00:43:57.519 --> 00:44:00.159
that's when we're at our best. So to get to

788
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:03.559
serve it your best, at your highest possible place feels

789
00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:08.239
all of that's this wonderfully vicious cycle that keeps feeding itself,

790
00:44:08.920 --> 00:44:12.719
so the drug gets stronger and stronger and stronger. So

791
00:44:12.920 --> 00:44:14.360
one of the things that you did say in the

792
00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:15.880
book that I thought was really interesting. I wanted to

793
00:44:15.920 --> 00:44:17.320
go here next for a little bit of time we

794
00:44:17.320 --> 00:44:19.880
have left, is you know the importance of seeing the

795
00:44:19.920 --> 00:44:22.280
positive effects of our work on others. And so when

796
00:44:22.320 --> 00:44:25.679
we can actually see oh, that's the that's the that's

797
00:44:25.719 --> 00:44:27.719
the end game of our work. This is where it

798
00:44:27.800 --> 00:44:31.079
actually landed. That can increase our meaningfulness. So if you

799
00:44:31.079 --> 00:44:32.280
could say a little bit about that.

800
00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:37.679
Yeah, we reference in the book pretty famous study by

801
00:44:38.079 --> 00:44:41.440
uh just happens to be another work management professor Adam

802
00:44:41.480 --> 00:44:45.360
Grant and colleagues where they found that even in an

803
00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:49.400
otherwise very mundane, very you know, kind of the lowest

804
00:44:49.480 --> 00:44:51.440
level job, we can imagine a job that probably a

805
00:44:51.480 --> 00:44:56.159
lot of us all would like to avoid telemarketing that

806
00:44:56.320 --> 00:44:59.199
in the in this case it was college students who

807
00:44:59.239 --> 00:45:02.639
are fundraised but you know, still cold calling alums and

808
00:45:02.719 --> 00:45:05.000
asking for money. Again, these are the calls on my

809
00:45:05.079 --> 00:45:07.440
phone that I kind of you know, skip no offense

810
00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:12.119
to my you know, my institution. But that when they

811
00:45:12.119 --> 00:45:18.280
were fundraising for scholarships and met the scholarship recipients, there

812
00:45:18.440 --> 00:45:22.559
was a tangible increase because you might say, oh, scholarship recipients,

813
00:45:22.559 --> 00:45:25.320
that's inherently meaningful, that's you know, no need to pump

814
00:45:25.360 --> 00:45:28.719
that up. But there was a significant boost in both

815
00:45:29.199 --> 00:45:32.239
in basically every metric of success. You can imagine time

816
00:45:32.320 --> 00:45:35.960
spent on the phone, number of calls, amount fundraised, you know,

817
00:45:36.039 --> 00:45:39.039
amount per person, and an aggregate and all these kinds

818
00:45:39.079 --> 00:45:42.119
of things based on and by the way, this was

819
00:45:42.159 --> 00:45:45.280
a brief meeting with these beneficiaries. And I think that's

820
00:45:45.320 --> 00:45:48.199
the single biggest actually a lease what you just mentioned,

821
00:45:48.440 --> 00:45:51.559
single biggest when people when I go giftalks and organizations

822
00:45:51.559 --> 00:45:54.400
and the question invariably comes up, how can I make

823
00:45:54.400 --> 00:45:56.679
my work seem more meaningful like my same job that

824
00:45:56.719 --> 00:46:00.239
I have today? That's always my recommendation. Try to find

825
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:05.119
who is that? And sometimes it's an ultimate and beneficiary,

826
00:46:05.320 --> 00:46:08.360
several steps are removed, or sometimes it's based on again,

827
00:46:08.440 --> 00:46:11.239
let's say the purpose of your company and that you

828
00:46:11.360 --> 00:46:14.360
doing your job well helps your company, which in turn

829
00:46:14.719 --> 00:46:18.119
in turn advances that purpose. But what what is made

830
00:46:18.280 --> 00:46:21.079
better because of your work? And I think all too

831
00:46:21.119 --> 00:46:24.760
often in our daily office jobs we can lose sight

832
00:46:24.760 --> 00:46:28.320
of that bigger picture. And so just that either you know,

833
00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:31.639
interaction with someone who's you know, life was made better

834
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:35.679
or changed or helped by the work I do can

835
00:46:35.719 --> 00:46:40.039
really help and can really show again like measurable productivity

836
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:41.440
and motivational increases.

837
00:46:42.039 --> 00:46:44.760
It's power, no questions to do. Seeing who it is

838
00:46:44.800 --> 00:46:47.320
you know, going looking for who who is actually being

839
00:46:47.320 --> 00:46:49.519
helped by my work is very very powerful. And then

840
00:46:49.960 --> 00:46:53.360
leaders and organizations can do a lot too by setting

841
00:46:53.440 --> 00:46:54.960
up the way that they do their business and their

842
00:46:54.960 --> 00:46:57.960
culture to usher in and bring in like Striker does

843
00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:00.880
the medical device company, it will very frequently bring in

844
00:47:01.039 --> 00:47:04.239
patients who have been either helped by the medical devices

845
00:47:04.280 --> 00:47:07.400
that they've been implanted with or that have saved their lives.

846
00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:11.199
And so that all employees can hear how their work,

847
00:47:11.239 --> 00:47:13.920
whether they're in accounting, whether they're in marketing, whether they're

848
00:47:13.960 --> 00:47:17.280
in R and D, contributed to that person is still

849
00:47:17.320 --> 00:47:21.039
standing here. And that's powerful, really powerful, And.

850
00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:24.039
I think the reality of the human being that's being

851
00:47:24.079 --> 00:47:27.719
helped is part of the power. Because I'm listening and

852
00:47:27.760 --> 00:47:29.639
thinking about what did I do wrong when I was

853
00:47:29.679 --> 00:47:32.480
a management consultant and I was trying to motivate a

854
00:47:32.519 --> 00:47:36.719
team to make their way through long, boring lists of

855
00:47:37.039 --> 00:47:41.920
financial disclosures in the interest of saving the world by

856
00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:46.039
loaning money to developing countries. And what I did wrong

857
00:47:46.159 --> 00:47:48.480
was I didn't bring them to developing countries where the

858
00:47:48.519 --> 00:47:50.760
work was being done. I just told them about it

859
00:47:51.360 --> 00:47:54.159
from a windowless conference room. And that is much less

860
00:47:54.159 --> 00:47:57.679
powerful than seeing the actual and beneficiaries of one's work,

861
00:47:58.199 --> 00:47:58.760
and even.

862
00:47:58.679 --> 00:48:00.880
Videos of what they were doing in their lives, I mean,

863
00:48:01.119 --> 00:48:04.039
would make a big difference. Okay, so you two. We

864
00:48:04.119 --> 00:48:06.400
could talk about all these kind of things for hours,

865
00:48:06.440 --> 00:48:07.679
and I do know one of you us to go

866
00:48:07.719 --> 00:48:10.400
to a class. You know, this show is listening to

867
00:48:10.440 --> 00:48:12.239
why people around the world, and the people that are

868
00:48:12.239 --> 00:48:15.320
listening to this podcast probably really care about meaning and

869
00:48:15.360 --> 00:48:17.880
how to find more of an experience more of it.

870
00:48:17.960 --> 00:48:19.480
What would you each like to leave them with?

871
00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:25.039
Well, we I mean, I think I just said it,

872
00:48:25.079 --> 00:48:27.360
and I'm trying to think of a better way to

873
00:48:27.400 --> 00:48:30.159
say it. So I think if I think it is

874
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:34.440
possible to find more meaning in your work, I mean, certainly,

875
00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:38.039
if you feel like your work is at a you know,

876
00:48:38.079 --> 00:48:41.599
sort of at a deficit or a decline, uh, it

877
00:48:41.679 --> 00:48:44.719
is probably time to take more extreme action. But often

878
00:48:44.800 --> 00:48:47.639
just thinking about you know, what is it in the

879
00:48:47.760 --> 00:48:51.440
daily task, the variety of things you do that brings

880
00:48:51.880 --> 00:48:54.440
you the most joy. You know, you you feel it's

881
00:48:54.480 --> 00:48:57.719
the most meaningful, and then the other side has the

882
00:48:57.760 --> 00:49:01.320
potential to help or make it difference or have meaning

883
00:49:01.519 --> 00:49:05.159
to someone else. Try to do more of those things,

884
00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:09.119
or try to interact more with the people who either

885
00:49:09.159 --> 00:49:13.840
bring you joy or help affirm that meaning. And I

886
00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:16.800
think the other is if you are in a job

887
00:49:17.119 --> 00:49:19.280
where you're saying, and this is the outcome of our

888
00:49:19.360 --> 00:49:21.679
nine to eleven research. You know, I'm in it for

889
00:49:21.719 --> 00:49:23.800
the money, and I really want to fuel the meaning

890
00:49:23.840 --> 00:49:26.599
in my life that takes place outside of the workplace.

891
00:49:26.880 --> 00:49:29.760
My job allows me to do that. That's okay, that's

892
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:33.960
still a meaningful life. But then just make sure am

893
00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:36.519
I being paid enough to fuel that? You know, whatever

894
00:49:36.599 --> 00:49:39.760
my goals are outside of work, am I being paid fairly?

895
00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:41.800
Am I? You know? I mean there are all these

896
00:49:41.840 --> 00:49:44.400
sort of considerations that then go along with that. But

897
00:49:44.639 --> 00:49:47.639
in the spirit that calling doesn't need to always just

898
00:49:47.719 --> 00:49:50.960
sit in the privileged part of the hierarchy. There can

899
00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:53.440
be very meaningful jobs and careers as well.

900
00:49:54.440 --> 00:49:57.280
Beautiful, I wish very briefly just if we have to close.

901
00:49:57.039 --> 00:49:59.760
But yeah, I'll second everything that Jen said. But also,

902
00:50:01.920 --> 00:50:04.639
if you are looking for a job with purpose, there's

903
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:08.199
often a perception that that comes at a trade off

904
00:50:08.239 --> 00:50:11.559
with pay, and that might be a false dichotomy. Try

905
00:50:11.559 --> 00:50:13.920
to make it a false dichotomy. But if it's not

906
00:50:13.960 --> 00:50:16.000
a false dichotomy, If there is a trade off between

907
00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:19.679
purpose and pay, then don't put pressure on yourself to

908
00:50:19.800 --> 00:50:23.679
always find both in one position, or you might be disappointed.

909
00:50:23.880 --> 00:50:25.599
If you can find them both over the course of

910
00:50:25.599 --> 00:50:27.920
your working life, you're a very fortunate person.

911
00:50:29.639 --> 00:50:31.840
It is so wonderful to no both, to you, to

912
00:50:31.920 --> 00:50:33.880
learn from you, to be inspired by you, to be

913
00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:35.800
connected to you. Thank you for coming back on working

914
00:50:35.800 --> 00:50:37.719
in purpose, and you'll come back again with the next book.

915
00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:39.360
Yes we can wait.

916
00:50:39.360 --> 00:50:42.440
Bok it originated here, so thank you Elise and likewise,

917
00:50:42.639 --> 00:50:44.400
Oh goodness, I want to hear more about that.

918
00:50:44.480 --> 00:50:46.400
Okay, listeners and viewers, you are going to want to

919
00:50:46.440 --> 00:50:50.519
learn more about doctor Christopher Wong Michaelson and doctor Jennifer Tostiicatis,

920
00:50:50.679 --> 00:50:52.880
their book and the work that they do. So visit

921
00:50:53.000 --> 00:50:57.280
Christopher wongmichaelson dot com. So Christopher standard spelling Wong is

922
00:50:57.280 --> 00:51:02.320
this middle name Wong and Michael an Iccha E l

923
00:51:02.599 --> 00:51:06.760
Son Christopher wongmichaelson dot com. Last week, if you missed

924
00:51:06.760 --> 00:51:08.440
The Life Show, we were on air at doctor Zach

925
00:51:08.519 --> 00:51:11.840
mccurio talking about his latest book, The Power of Mattering,

926
00:51:11.880 --> 00:51:14.880
How Leaders can create a culture of Significance. He helped

927
00:51:14.960 --> 00:51:17.639
us understand the power of all leaders assuming that people

928
00:51:17.719 --> 00:51:22.199
don't feel seen, heard, or appreciated, and then acting accordingly

929
00:51:22.280 --> 00:51:25.400
to assure they do. Sounds very simple, but it's very powerful.

930
00:51:26.039 --> 00:51:28.079
Next week will be on the air of Sebastian Page,

931
00:51:28.119 --> 00:51:31.400
the author of the Psychology of Leadership. Timeless Principles to

932
00:51:31.480 --> 00:51:35.920
improve your management of individuals, teams, and yourself. Promised to

933
00:51:35.960 --> 00:51:38.679
be another fascinating and inspiring conversation. See you then, and

934
00:51:38.840 --> 00:51:41.000
remember work is one of the best adventures and means

935
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:43.480
of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave

936
00:51:43.719 --> 00:51:45.480
and can give us the opportunity to do business in

937
00:51:45.519 --> 00:51:48.480
a way that betters the world. So let's work on Purpose.

938
00:51:50.880 --> 00:51:54.519
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to

939
00:51:54.559 --> 00:51:58.199
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,

940
00:51:58.360 --> 00:52:01.679
each week on W four C. Together we'll create a

941
00:52:01.679 --> 00:52:06.320
world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance

942
00:52:06.400 --> 00:52:09.159
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning

943
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and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.